A discussion starter from Dr Peter Toon, December 4, 2005
I wish to suggest – with some trepidation and hesitation – that because traditional and orthodox Christian groups have adopted the terms of reference and language of innovators in Christian anthropology and sexual morality, they have effectively lost not only the debate but also the war of ideas. This is clearly so within the Episcopal Church of the USA, and may well even be so in popular Evangelicalism. Let us focus on the vocabulary and expressions used in the advancement of the cause of innovatory doctrine and practice in this important area.
ECUSA as example
In June 2005, the Episcopal Church sent representatives to the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in the UK to explain its commitment to the innovation of the blessing of partnerships of two men or two women and to the ordaining of persons in such partnerships. They carried with them a book, To Set our Hope on Christ, to explain in detail their message. In this book, one meets often the expression “same-sex affection.”
I suspect that for the older person – and maybe for the younger one – hearing or reading the expression “same-sex affection” presents the image to the mind of two men holding hands or embracing, or two women doing something similar. The image could be more dramatic; but, essentially, the general or usual understanding is of two persons who possess the same biological features showing affection one to another in explicit ways.
However, this way of understanding the expression “same-sex affection” is not exactly what the team of writers of To Set our Hope on Christ has in mind. The Presiding Bishop’s team moves in a specific sphere of understanding (which is relatively new in the history of ideas but now generally accepted in the officialdom of government, education and big business). In this world an important distinction is made between “gender” and “sex”.
The word “gender” was previously used – as we recall from our Latin or Spanish classes – primarily if not only in the study of language to indicate the specific character of nouns in order to determine the form of the adjective to go with them [whether masculine, feminine or neuter] ). Now, it also refers in the new ideology to the biological make-up of the person when viewed in the nude, male if with male reproductive organs and female if with female reproductive organs. So when filling in forms today one is asked for one’s gender.
The word “sex” was previously used to indicate the biological nature of a human being in terms of reproduction and so there was the male and the female sex. Now in the new ideology it refers to the “internal wiring,” the “orientation,” and “the inbuilt preference” of a person sexually. And this may be towards the male “gender”, the female “gender”, or both. That is, the reproductive organs of a person are no sure indication of his or her “orientation” which is said to be located in the psyche not in the genital organs.
So “same-sex affection” for the new morality of the Presiding Bishop and his team is not only the showing of tender feelings between two persons of the same “gender,” it is also between two persons of the same “sex”, that is of the same “wiring,” “orientation” and “preference,” showing tender feelings. Thus in this ideology such affection is judged to be natural, normal and moral for those who are “wired” in this particular way. In fact, it is even argued that it would be immoral for such a person to engage in intimate sexual acts with a person of the opposite “gender”, that is, opposite biological make-up merely because such a relation is regarded as the historical and general norm.
Traditionalists and the use of these words
Thus, when the “traditionalist” and “orthodox” and “Evangelical” use these words – and let us be clear just how widespread now is the use of “gender” and “orientation” – they need to consider how much they are conceding to the innovators. In fact, they need to ponder whether or not they have lost any control of the debate in that they have accepted the premises of the other side by both using the words and doing so in their way.
If we go back a little – not too far – in the use of the English language (e.g. when I was at secondary school and university) the word “sex” was used in line with its Latin origins from the root sexus or secus with the meaning of to “divide” or to “halve” So “sex” is the division of the human race into two kinds, the male and the female, each with a specific body shape designed to fit with and into the other for the purpose of procreation.
Only in the twentieth century did “sex” come to be used of “sexual intercourse”, of an activity rather than on objective, fixed state of being (apparently D.H. Lawrence helped to pioneer this usage of referring to carnal intercourse as “having sex”). As “sex” became an activity rather than as a fixed being, so the word “gender” was called out of the field of grammar in the 1960s into a new use -- to refer to the objective biological fact of the identity of a human being as either male or female. This use of words was taken up by the powerful feminist movement from the 1960s and by its influence it has been generally accepted – along with inclusive language – by academia, business, media, government, and churches.
Once this distinction is in place, then developments from it came quickly and easily. “Sex” is not only activity, it is also the internal wiring or passion of the soul / body that produces the desires for such activity. Further, this disposition or wiring (said the Lesbians in the Feminist Movement) is not always towards the opposite “gender”! It is often amongst activist women towards their own kind. Thus “orientation” as describing this inclination, disposition and wiring of the sexual drive was used increasingly to make and support the distinction between attraction towards the opposite and towards the same gender. And, as the decades went by, and the “Gay” lobby developed, the reality of such orientation was supposedly confirm by psychologists and psychiatrists. Now, to question the permanent character of orientation is to be seen as hopelessly out of touch.
It may be suggested that for the “traditionalist” and “orthodox” to adopt the doctrine, or even the probability of “orientation” towards the same “gender,” is virtually to lose the debate. It may be asked: Has it not become common place to state that we must distinguish between specific sexual acts (which is in sin) and orientation towards them (which is only a sin if it is cherished and developed)? To accept the presence of not merely inclinations and dispositions but an actual, permanent ordering or wiring towards people of the same gender and sexual drive is to concede much, very much. It is also for all practical purposes also to concede not only the ideological distinction between “sex” and “gender,” but also to underline it with the recognition that “sex” to be “normal” may be with the same “gender” and be so according to nature – according to natural sexual wiring! (Official R. C. teaching appears not to have followed Protestant churches and groups into the adopting or accepting this new language, especially the language of orientation.)
Oddity of the word Homosexual!
Here, in terms of etymology, we may now note the oddity of the words “homosexual” and “heterosexual” if the word ”sex” is used in its older and traditional meaning. “Homosexual” links a Greek word with a Latin word (homos, same, with sexus, half of a divided whole) to create a word that is without any sense, for it has internal contradiction. Sexus makes a man and women complementary as creatures while homos says they are the same. And “heterosexual” is tautological since sexus requires two different halves, male and female, and heteros means “other” and opposite..
So it is not surprising to find that the word “homosexual” is a relatively modern word and that it first appeared in English, along with “heterosexual”, in a translation of Psychopathologia Sexualis (1886) by Richard Kraft-Ebing. Then it was used by Havelock Ellis in his Studies in the Psychology of Sex in 1891. It came into use when the medical profession was beginning to discuss sexual deviancy in medical not moral terms. In ancient Greek there were no nouns corresponding to the modern “ a homosexual” and “a heterosexual” even though Latin and Greek are both rich in words to describe sexual relations between men and men, men and boys and so on – see J.N.Adam’s The Latin Sexual Vocabulary.
To concede the use of this word as legitimately describing a class of people, is a major concession in the debate over the proper relations between human beings. For it allows that there is a class of persons who are permanently by nature attracted towards, wired towards, orientated towards the same “gender” for “sex” purposes. And, further, it carries with it the implication (which is being gradually accepted in the West by governments, law, education, business etc.) that both their desires and their fulfillment are according to nature and thus are morally sound and therefore ought to be recognized as normal and not punished as abnormal.
Conclusion
It would seem that the opposition to the “Gay” lobby in the churches has been on the basis of biblical doctrine and Christian ethical tradition. However, this has had limited effect because of the major concessions made in terms of language and vocabulary.
So it would appear that there is a major task for Christian scholars to devise ways of speech and forms of description that allow the churches to speak courteously of those who claim to be “gay” and yet not in such speech concede to them the rightness and morality of their cause, claims and commitments. Right now the debate between received, biblical and traditional sexual morality and innovatory doctrine and practice is being conducted very much in the terms and with the words that actually gives one side more than a head start!
[For further reading I heartily commend “The Gay Invention: Homosexuality is a linguistic as well as a moral error” by Professor R.V. Young in Touchstone, Dec. 2005. This essay has been an inspiration to me as were previous ones by this author. www.touchstonemag.com]
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Friday, December 02, 2005
Anglican Evangelicalism and Reformed Catholicism: Where do they differ?
The Evangelical theologians and writers of the 18th & 19th centuries whom I studied to write my book, Evangelical Theology 1833-1856, Response to Tractarianism (UK & USA, 1979, web edition at Anglican Books Revitalized) and related essays and articles, described themselves as “evangelical Churchmen”. By this they were saying two things: (a) that they shared a common zeal for the Gospel with evangelical Dissenters, Nonconformists and Scottish Presbyterians, and (b) that they were also committed to the Formularies of the Church of England, making them “Churchmen,” alongside others – high churchmen for example. They formed and supported societies which both sent missionaries abroad and also printed and distributed the Book of Common Prayer.
If you were to ask them for a way of describing the form of Christianity which they embraced, they would have said, “Reformed Catholicism.” In their mindset, the Church of England is an ancient part or national jurisdiction of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that went through a reformation of its worship, doctrine and discipline in the sixteenth century. The result of this reformation and renewal is not Roman Catholicism or Medieval Catholicism but Reformed Catholicism.
And they would point to the Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal, as the Formularies. These express the mind, form and shape of Reformed Catholicism, with its commitment to the final authority of Scripture for Faith and Morality and its deference to the biblical exposition and teaching of the early Fathers and the early Ecumenical Councils. In their response to the new phenomenon of anglo-catholicism (which is not identical to traditional high churchmanship) after 1833, the Evangelicals constantly appealed to the Scriptures, the early Fathers, the early Councils, the Formularies and what they called the “standard divines” of the Church of England (e.g., Hooker & Waterland). They believed that the anglo-catholics gave too much emphasis and credence to medieval doctrines and practices which the Church of England set aside or rejected in the sixteenth century. Finally, for them the Book of Common Prayer was “that most excellent Liturgy” (so Charles Simeon) and they used its services of Morning and Evening Prayer for evangelistic services inside and outside the churches.
Today in the Church of England there are few Evangelicals who either desire to be so called or who are appropriately called Reformed Catholics. Only in associations such as the Church Society and Reform are such persons normally to be found. Dr Roger Beckwith is a well-known theologian of this school of thought.
In the USA there are exceedingly few Reformed Catholics in the ECUSA and only a sprinkling in the Reformed Episcopal Church.
What has happened is that “evangelical churchmen” in the ECUSA, Anglican Church of Canada, and AMiA and elsewhere now tend to interpret evangelical in terms of, and in line with, the dominant mindset of popular Evangelicalism in the USA (with its definitions of the Gospel, the authority of Scripture, forms of reading and interpreting the Bible, personal relationships with Jesus, types of church growth, forms of popular services, church management, psycho-therapeutical counselling and so on) and say little about being “churchmen” of the Anglican Way, the Reformed Catholic Way. The word “evangelical” has been inflated and the word “churchmen” has been deflated. In general, they seem not to have much concern for the Formularies (and the rich tradition of doctrine related to them and their exposition) and thus (a) in worship tend to use modern Anglican services with a maximum amount of local flexibility; (b) in doctrine follow a generic evangelical theology again with local flexibility, and (c) in discipline follow the trends with regard to marriage, divorce and remarriage and to women’s ministry that are generally common in Evangelicalism (whose major mouthpiece is “Christianity Today”.
What this means is that they are not opposed to the Formularies as such but that they see them as having little or no immediate relevance to their concerns now. They use the 1979 Prayer Book as a basis for their services but are not particularly wedded to it. (Yet they will not join the Prayer Book Society of the USA and others in making a clear statement that the 1979 Book is a book of alternative services not truly “The Book of Common Prayer” as its title claims.) Certainly the modern Anglican Evangelicals use the term “orthodox” of themselves but this is a true description primarily as indicating that they are against the progressive liberals of the ECUSA. They also call the leaders of the innovations in the ECUSA by the term “revisionists” indicating that they have changed the teaching on sexuality; yet they themselves could also, from the standpoint of Reformed Catholicism, be called “revisionists” for they are committed to a form of Anglicanism that is very different from that which was in place in earlier times.
One saw this Anglican Evangelicalism at its best during the Pittsburgh Conference, “Hope and a Future” (November 10-12) of The Network, but one also saw there how very different it is from classical Evangelical Churchmanship in worship, doctrine and discipline – that is in general mindset.
The recent innovations with regard to homosexuality in the Episcopal Church have given to the Evangelicals an opportunity to rise up not only in protest within the ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada, but also to make alliances with provinces and groups abroad who are also very concerned about the sexual innovations. Yet surprisingly this “crisis” has had little or no impact on making them consider more carefully the mature of Reformed Catholicism. They have not felt the need “to dig again the wells of Abraham.”
Finally the most regrettable fact that modern Anglican Evangelicals are not “Evangelical Churchmen” has had and will have profound implications for the future of the Anglican Way in North America.
petertoon@msn.com December 2, 2005
If you were to ask them for a way of describing the form of Christianity which they embraced, they would have said, “Reformed Catholicism.” In their mindset, the Church of England is an ancient part or national jurisdiction of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that went through a reformation of its worship, doctrine and discipline in the sixteenth century. The result of this reformation and renewal is not Roman Catholicism or Medieval Catholicism but Reformed Catholicism.
And they would point to the Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal, as the Formularies. These express the mind, form and shape of Reformed Catholicism, with its commitment to the final authority of Scripture for Faith and Morality and its deference to the biblical exposition and teaching of the early Fathers and the early Ecumenical Councils. In their response to the new phenomenon of anglo-catholicism (which is not identical to traditional high churchmanship) after 1833, the Evangelicals constantly appealed to the Scriptures, the early Fathers, the early Councils, the Formularies and what they called the “standard divines” of the Church of England (e.g., Hooker & Waterland). They believed that the anglo-catholics gave too much emphasis and credence to medieval doctrines and practices which the Church of England set aside or rejected in the sixteenth century. Finally, for them the Book of Common Prayer was “that most excellent Liturgy” (so Charles Simeon) and they used its services of Morning and Evening Prayer for evangelistic services inside and outside the churches.
Today in the Church of England there are few Evangelicals who either desire to be so called or who are appropriately called Reformed Catholics. Only in associations such as the Church Society and Reform are such persons normally to be found. Dr Roger Beckwith is a well-known theologian of this school of thought.
In the USA there are exceedingly few Reformed Catholics in the ECUSA and only a sprinkling in the Reformed Episcopal Church.
What has happened is that “evangelical churchmen” in the ECUSA, Anglican Church of Canada, and AMiA and elsewhere now tend to interpret evangelical in terms of, and in line with, the dominant mindset of popular Evangelicalism in the USA (with its definitions of the Gospel, the authority of Scripture, forms of reading and interpreting the Bible, personal relationships with Jesus, types of church growth, forms of popular services, church management, psycho-therapeutical counselling and so on) and say little about being “churchmen” of the Anglican Way, the Reformed Catholic Way. The word “evangelical” has been inflated and the word “churchmen” has been deflated. In general, they seem not to have much concern for the Formularies (and the rich tradition of doctrine related to them and their exposition) and thus (a) in worship tend to use modern Anglican services with a maximum amount of local flexibility; (b) in doctrine follow a generic evangelical theology again with local flexibility, and (c) in discipline follow the trends with regard to marriage, divorce and remarriage and to women’s ministry that are generally common in Evangelicalism (whose major mouthpiece is “Christianity Today”.
What this means is that they are not opposed to the Formularies as such but that they see them as having little or no immediate relevance to their concerns now. They use the 1979 Prayer Book as a basis for their services but are not particularly wedded to it. (Yet they will not join the Prayer Book Society of the USA and others in making a clear statement that the 1979 Book is a book of alternative services not truly “The Book of Common Prayer” as its title claims.) Certainly the modern Anglican Evangelicals use the term “orthodox” of themselves but this is a true description primarily as indicating that they are against the progressive liberals of the ECUSA. They also call the leaders of the innovations in the ECUSA by the term “revisionists” indicating that they have changed the teaching on sexuality; yet they themselves could also, from the standpoint of Reformed Catholicism, be called “revisionists” for they are committed to a form of Anglicanism that is very different from that which was in place in earlier times.
One saw this Anglican Evangelicalism at its best during the Pittsburgh Conference, “Hope and a Future” (November 10-12) of The Network, but one also saw there how very different it is from classical Evangelical Churchmanship in worship, doctrine and discipline – that is in general mindset.
The recent innovations with regard to homosexuality in the Episcopal Church have given to the Evangelicals an opportunity to rise up not only in protest within the ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada, but also to make alliances with provinces and groups abroad who are also very concerned about the sexual innovations. Yet surprisingly this “crisis” has had little or no impact on making them consider more carefully the mature of Reformed Catholicism. They have not felt the need “to dig again the wells of Abraham.”
Finally the most regrettable fact that modern Anglican Evangelicals are not “Evangelical Churchmen” has had and will have profound implications for the future of the Anglican Way in North America.
petertoon@msn.com December 2, 2005
Presbyters & Homosexuality, Roman Catholic and Reformed Catholic approaches compared
In an essay, “Homosexuality – Rome and the Episcopal Church” of December 1st, I contrasted the teaching of the Roman Catholic and Episcopal Churches on the priesthood and homosexuality. I found them to be very different. I was able to be fairly precise on the differences because each Church has recently published statements on the matter -- On Priesthood and those with homosexual tendencies (Rome, November 05) and To Set our Hope on Christ (New York City, June 05) from the Presiding Bishop of the ECUSA. [I responded to the latter in Same-Sex Affection, Holiness & Ordination, August 05 –to obtain, visit www.anglicanmarketplace.com]
As far as I am aware, the Reformed Catholic, or traditionally Anglican, position has not been fully stated by any official body recently. That is, it has not been set forth by any ecclesial province of the Anglican Communion that is committed to the authority of Scripture and to the secondary authority of the Anglican Formularies; or to use the words of Canon A5 of the Church of England: “The doctrine is grounded in the holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal.” Of course, there are conservative and liberal statements from a variety of groups and there are statements from the Lambeth Conference of Bishops and the Primates’ Meeting, but none of them may be called Reformed Catholic in character.
The Reformed Catholic position has to be sought from the Scriptures (as interpreted by the guidance of the mind of the ancient Fathers), and the Formularies. In the latter case from such texts as (a) the marriage service in the BCP of 1662, especially the Preface; (b) the services of ordination in the Ordinal, especially the promises made by the priest and bishop; and (c) the homilies on “Whoredom and Adultery” and “The State of Matrimony” in The Books of Homilies to which the Articles of Religion point for doctrine.
As the Reformed Catholic position is much nearer to the Roman Catholic position than to the position of the ECUSA, it will be convenient first of all to state the Roman Catholic position and then show where the Reformed Catholic is different, if at all. Here is a quote from the recent R.C. document:
Where Reformed Catholic and Roman Catholic teaching part is over the matter of priestly celibacy. The Roman priest is to be celibate and affectively mature so that as a man he is ordered towards the female sex. However, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost he is, as the representative of Christ the Bridegroom, to be ordered towards the congregation of Christ’s disciples as the Bride of Christ, to care for them. The Anglican priest may be either celibate or married. If the former, then he may be described in the same terms as the Roman priest. If married, then united to his wife as one flesh for life, he is also in affective maturity both to love her and to love with her help, in the Bridegroom’s name, the flock of Christ entrusted to his care.
Where “orientation” enters into the description of homosexuality, then the biblical and historic Christian teaching on sexual relations has to be set aside, at least in its fullness, and the door is wide open to changed doctrine, and this is happening right now within Anglicanism worldwide. One recalls a similar change in doctrine with consequences still occurring, when the Lambeth Conference of Bishops in 1930 departed from Reformed Catholicism and recommended that artificial contraception be encouraged for use by Christian couples.
[Do visit www.anglicanmarketplace.com and for tracts and essays by Peter Toon go to www.episcopalian.org/pbs1928 ]
December 2, 2005 petertoon@msn.com
As far as I am aware, the Reformed Catholic, or traditionally Anglican, position has not been fully stated by any official body recently. That is, it has not been set forth by any ecclesial province of the Anglican Communion that is committed to the authority of Scripture and to the secondary authority of the Anglican Formularies; or to use the words of Canon A5 of the Church of England: “The doctrine is grounded in the holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal.” Of course, there are conservative and liberal statements from a variety of groups and there are statements from the Lambeth Conference of Bishops and the Primates’ Meeting, but none of them may be called Reformed Catholic in character.
The Reformed Catholic position has to be sought from the Scriptures (as interpreted by the guidance of the mind of the ancient Fathers), and the Formularies. In the latter case from such texts as (a) the marriage service in the BCP of 1662, especially the Preface; (b) the services of ordination in the Ordinal, especially the promises made by the priest and bishop; and (c) the homilies on “Whoredom and Adultery” and “The State of Matrimony” in The Books of Homilies to which the Articles of Religion point for doctrine.
As the Reformed Catholic position is much nearer to the Roman Catholic position than to the position of the ECUSA, it will be convenient first of all to state the Roman Catholic position and then show where the Reformed Catholic is different, if at all. Here is a quote from the recent R.C. document:
As far as I can tell, Reformed Catholic teaching wholly agrees with the teaching here presented that distinguishes acts from tendencies, calling the first grave sins and the second disordered. Where both the Roman Catholic and the Reformed Catholic take a different position to much popular Evangelical teaching (which has dominated the conservative Anglican response) is their reluctance or refusal to speak of “sexual orientation” which allows the suggestion and then the doctrine (firmly in place in the ECUSA) that some people are “objectively ordered” towards the same sex. This is because they interpret modern experience by the light of Revelation rather than modifying the light of Revelation by the “assured results” of modern experience.From the time of the Second Vatican Council until today, various documents of the Magisterium, and especially the Catechism of the Catholic Church, have confirmed the teaching of the Church on homosexuality. The Catechism distinguishes between homosexual acts and homosexual tendencies.
Regarding acts, it teaches that Sacred Scripture presents them as grave sins. The Tradition has constantly considered them as intrinsically immoral and contrary to the natural law. Consequently, under no circumstance can they be approved.
Deep-seated homosexual tendencies, which are found in a number of men and women, are also objectively disordered and, for those same people, often constitute a trial. Such persons must be accepted with respect and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. They are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter.
In the light of such teaching, this dicastery, in accord with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, believes it necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called "gay culture."
Where Reformed Catholic and Roman Catholic teaching part is over the matter of priestly celibacy. The Roman priest is to be celibate and affectively mature so that as a man he is ordered towards the female sex. However, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost he is, as the representative of Christ the Bridegroom, to be ordered towards the congregation of Christ’s disciples as the Bride of Christ, to care for them. The Anglican priest may be either celibate or married. If the former, then he may be described in the same terms as the Roman priest. If married, then united to his wife as one flesh for life, he is also in affective maturity both to love her and to love with her help, in the Bridegroom’s name, the flock of Christ entrusted to his care.
Where “orientation” enters into the description of homosexuality, then the biblical and historic Christian teaching on sexual relations has to be set aside, at least in its fullness, and the door is wide open to changed doctrine, and this is happening right now within Anglicanism worldwide. One recalls a similar change in doctrine with consequences still occurring, when the Lambeth Conference of Bishops in 1930 departed from Reformed Catholicism and recommended that artificial contraception be encouraged for use by Christian couples.
[Do visit www.anglicanmarketplace.com and for tracts and essays by Peter Toon go to www.episcopalian.org/pbs1928 ]
December 2, 2005 petertoon@msn.com
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Homosexuality – Rome and the Episcopal Church
Even though there are vocal “gay” priests both in the Roman Catholic and Episcopal Churches, the official teaching of the two churches concerning homosexuality & the priesthood is vastly different. In fact, it seems hard at times to believe that they are reading the same Bible, living in the same world and considering the same natural law.
For the Roman Church, the revealed Word of God, sacred tradition and natural law all combine to teach that genital sexual acts between two persons of the same sex are always wrong and are always a sin against God under any conditions. Strong inclinations and desires to perform such acts represent a grave disorder in the affections of a person, for a mature person’s affections in sexual attraction are naturally ordered towards the opposite sex. In the case of the priest his affections are ordered by grace towards the congregation of Christ’s flock, which is the Bride of Christ, and he is a spiritual father to the flock. This means that a man who is active as an homosexual or even a man who is not mature in his affections (though he is celibate) should not to be ordained to the priesthood.
For the Episcopal Church, the Bible and modern experience [ = active human experience of homosexual acts in the context of the judgments of scientists, doctors, state legislators etc.] combine to teach that genital, sexual acts between two persons of the same sex are normally wrong and always sinful; however, when the two persons are bound in same-sex affection and in a covenanted partnership based on faithfulness to one another, then they can be holy and blessed of God. Strong inclinations and desires to have sexual encounters with persons of the same sex are to be seen, in most cases, as simply the result of how a person is “wired” (either towards the opposite sex or the same sex or both sexes). Such feelings are not to be seen as disordered but as according to orientation. This means that a man who is in a faithful, covenanted same-sex union, and is in other ways suitably gifted, is eligible for ordination as a priest and consecration as a bishop. Also eligible is the person who has the orientation but who chooses to remain celibate. In this context, maturity in affections is considered to be dependent upon orientation, not objective natural law.
Now obviously the position of the Episcopal Church is more in line with what is accepted and in place in western society, law and culture. In fact is it a kind of moral refinement of it. For it accepts the human rights of the person who claims that he or she has a permanent sexual orientation towards his or her own sex (gender). In fact it sees these rights as “God-given” and therefore feels led by the divine Spirit to install and uphold these rights while also proclaiming simultaneously the virtues of chastity and faithfulness. In doing all this, the Episcopal Church accepts that sodomy [=fornication] and child-molestation are wrong and sinful, and it insists that only permanent, faithful and covenanted same-sex relations come within the orbit of God’s blessing within the Church of God.
The position of the Roman Catholic Church is and will be very hard to implement in the West because of the secular, liberal society and because there are now and there will be senior priests who will find it difficult to implement the rules and who will claim that God enlightens us through modern knowledge (e.g. from psychiatry & social sciences) and that from here we learn that the mental health of some persons requires that they be in same-sex relations for that is how they are made and “wired.”
What I think is useful to observe is this: That there is a sense in which it is easier for the Roman Catholic Church to stand firm (at least in the hierarchy and this is where in its polity it matters) on homosexuality because it has taken consistently tough positions all the time with regard to sexuality. For example,
For the Roman Church, the revealed Word of God, sacred tradition and natural law all combine to teach that genital sexual acts between two persons of the same sex are always wrong and are always a sin against God under any conditions. Strong inclinations and desires to perform such acts represent a grave disorder in the affections of a person, for a mature person’s affections in sexual attraction are naturally ordered towards the opposite sex. In the case of the priest his affections are ordered by grace towards the congregation of Christ’s flock, which is the Bride of Christ, and he is a spiritual father to the flock. This means that a man who is active as an homosexual or even a man who is not mature in his affections (though he is celibate) should not to be ordained to the priesthood.
For the Episcopal Church, the Bible and modern experience [ = active human experience of homosexual acts in the context of the judgments of scientists, doctors, state legislators etc.] combine to teach that genital, sexual acts between two persons of the same sex are normally wrong and always sinful; however, when the two persons are bound in same-sex affection and in a covenanted partnership based on faithfulness to one another, then they can be holy and blessed of God. Strong inclinations and desires to have sexual encounters with persons of the same sex are to be seen, in most cases, as simply the result of how a person is “wired” (either towards the opposite sex or the same sex or both sexes). Such feelings are not to be seen as disordered but as according to orientation. This means that a man who is in a faithful, covenanted same-sex union, and is in other ways suitably gifted, is eligible for ordination as a priest and consecration as a bishop. Also eligible is the person who has the orientation but who chooses to remain celibate. In this context, maturity in affections is considered to be dependent upon orientation, not objective natural law.
Now obviously the position of the Episcopal Church is more in line with what is accepted and in place in western society, law and culture. In fact is it a kind of moral refinement of it. For it accepts the human rights of the person who claims that he or she has a permanent sexual orientation towards his or her own sex (gender). In fact it sees these rights as “God-given” and therefore feels led by the divine Spirit to install and uphold these rights while also proclaiming simultaneously the virtues of chastity and faithfulness. In doing all this, the Episcopal Church accepts that sodomy [=fornication] and child-molestation are wrong and sinful, and it insists that only permanent, faithful and covenanted same-sex relations come within the orbit of God’s blessing within the Church of God.
The position of the Roman Catholic Church is and will be very hard to implement in the West because of the secular, liberal society and because there are now and there will be senior priests who will find it difficult to implement the rules and who will claim that God enlightens us through modern knowledge (e.g. from psychiatry & social sciences) and that from here we learn that the mental health of some persons requires that they be in same-sex relations for that is how they are made and “wired.”
What I think is useful to observe is this: That there is a sense in which it is easier for the Roman Catholic Church to stand firm (at least in the hierarchy and this is where in its polity it matters) on homosexuality because it has taken consistently tough positions all the time with regard to sexuality. For example,
- Ordination. It has said the most wonderful things about women as God’s creation and as made in his image and after his likeness, and it allows women great authority in convents and places of education, but it has resolutely and clearly stated that it is not the will of Christ the Lord for a woman to be a presbyter or an episcopos. A woman, not even the Blessed Virgin Mary, can be an icon of Christ for he was/is male in his human nature and he is the Bridegroom of the Church, his Bride. In contrast, pressed along by the human rights movement and the women’s liberation movement, the Episcopal Church began to ordain women as presbyters and bishops in the 1970s. [And having done this it is very difficult to say “No” to other demands from the human rights movement- e.g. rights for “gays”.]
- Marriage. The teaching concerning Marriage in the Catechism of the R.C Church is that a man and a woman, in the presence of the priest and with God’s blessing, make a covenant to live together as one flesh until death breaks the union. As one flesh they are to be companions one with another and to procreate and thus share with God in his creative work. No second marriage is possible in church for either unless the spouse has died. Thus marriage is presented as a sacrament and without the blessing of the Church it is not Christian marriage. [This is why annulments are given to those who were in civil marriages and have been divorced if they desire to be faithful Catholics and to enter into Christian marriage and if there are no impediments for this. Regrettably, in America, this use of annulments has been over-done and is an embarrassment for many devout Catholics.] In contrast, the Episcopal Church officially accepts the right of a person, clergy or lay, after divorce to be remarried in church, and makes little or no use of annulments, for it has in essence accepted the basic doctrine of the divorce culture that each person has a right to a second or third marriage if this is reasonably possible. And further, unlike the R C Church, it recognizes marriages performed by the state or by other churches as real and true marriages. In this context to deny rights to homosexual couples is difficult!
- Birth control. The R.C. Church has clear teaching that the use of artificial birth control is wrong for it stands in the way of God’s work of cooperating with his creatures in the holy work of creation. Further, the Church insists that the use of abortion as a means of birth control is also wrong and sinful. [The fact that some Catholics disobey the Church teaching does not change the fact of the teaching.] In contrast, the Episcopal Church appears to accept the right of couples to use all forms of birth control and also to use abortion as a means thereunto as well. This is in part because procreation is not seen as a primary but a general, and not required, purpose of marriage.
One may suggest that because the Episcopal Church -- and most Protestant Churches – have taken positions based on human rights and psychotherapeutical fulfillment in the developing of their doctrine in the twentieth century, that they will never be able to stand firm on anything of a moral nature that is being challenged in the modern, secularist world.
This is why, I fear, that in reforming groups within the main-line/old-line Churches there is a tacit acceptance of the reality of birth control, abortion, serial monogamy and women’s ordination, and a general refusal to put them on the agenda for serious reform. It is easier for the time being to draw the line at the “gay” agenda and to insist on evangelism and church growth under the Lordship of Christ and on the authority of Scripture. In fact, it would appear there is avoidance of some basic issues not because of wicked intent but because they seem to be without easy or immediate solution, and it seems better to avoid them and press on with what can be done and for which people will give contributions! Regrettably but realistically, this situation is a natural breeding ground for the making of converts to Roman Catholicism and/or to Orthodoxy, or for causing conservatives to enter the progressive, liberal camp, or, even, for people to leave institutional religion altogether in despair!
petertoon@msn.com December 1, 2005
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
God’s Word for Reformed Catholics – the Collect for Advent II
There is no better statement of the Reformed Catholic (Church of England & Anglican Protestant) approach and submission to the Bible as the Word of God written than the prayer composed for the Advent season by Archbishop Cranmer in the late 1540s. It is found in all authentic editions of The Book of [the] Common Prayer, beginning with the first edition of 1549, as the Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent. Let us take it part by part:
Blessed Lord, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel” cried Zechariah (Luke 1:68) and Paul wrote, “Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Here we address God as “the Lord,” the ultimate “I am who I am,” the Lord of all being and the fountain of all goodness, wisdom and power.
Who hast caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning; Paul wrote, “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning” (Romans 15:4) and, “All these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).
Here, by careful use of the relative clause, we recall reverently before God what we have been taught concerning the use of the Scriptures, that though written centuries ago, they were written (by inspiration and through God’s omniscience) for our practical use today. They exist for our learning, or our instruction in Faith and Morals. So we read the Scriptures in the humble confidence that God has foreseen our needs and will meet them as we receive his written Word.
Grant that we may in such wise hear them, Since we know why the Scriptures exist we ask God, in his mercy and grace, to place us in a position where we can truly profit from their existence and content, as the Word of God written and translated into our language. The verb “Grant” contains not only the theme of petition but also of submission to God, the Lord. And we ask that we may receive their content in such a way and fashion that the reception will be to our true edification. “Hearing” is the first way in which we receive the oracles of God, as they are read in the church services of Morning and Evening Prayer, in the Order for Holy Communion, and in Family Prayers.
Read, mark and inwardly digest them, Hearing the oracles is but the beginning of receiving them for as we hear them we can also read them, and when alone we can just read them. The purpose of both hearing and reading them (done at the same time or separately) is that we may mark, that is pay careful attention to, what we hear and read concerning God and his salvation in Jesus Christ. Marking, paying careful attention, leads to learning and understanding, and to being lodged in the memory and heart – “Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee” [Psalm 119:11]. This whole exercise may be called meditation for it is the route appointed by God whereby his Word goes from the written page into our inmost souls. Merely to hear or merely to read the Bible is not enough; we are called dutifully and humbly to employ the means necessary to allow the Word of God to enter into our lives. We need to have both the spiritual appetite and the spiritual digestion in place to come to the experience of the Psalmist who declared: “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth” [Psalm 119:103].
That by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word, Here we begin a specific application to the Advent Season, when we look for the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus in glory even as we celebrate his Nativity in Bethlehem as the Son of God incarnate. St Paul wrote, “that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Romans 15:4), that is hope of that Second Coming and of the redemption of our bodies and life in glory. We need to bear in mind that the comfort and strengthening of the Scriptures particularly comes to those who are patient!
We may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, The Christian hope is a blessed hope as St Paul told Titus: “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). And having addressed God as the “Blessed Lord”, we now celebrate the “blessed hope” which he alone provides for us (if we were using Latin the first of God would be Benedictus and the second of his gift would be beatus).
Thus we ask God to help us rightly to use the Holy Scriptures as a means of preparing for the Second Advent and of life together with Christ in glory.
Which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. As the invocation of this Collect (to “Blessed Lord”) is unique in The Book of Common Prayer, so the conclusion is a very significant variation on the usual ending of these short prayers – “through Jesus Christ…” Instead of the proposition “through” we use “in” because the Christian hope is not merely through Jesus the Mediator but it is actually all bound up within him as our Prophet, Priest and King. In fact it is, “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” as St Paul told the Colossians (1:27). This Hope keeps us steadfast not only in Advent but throughout the whole Church Year.
Amen. So be it, O LORD, the Blessed One and blessed be thy kingdom now and always, even unto ages of ages.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)
Blessed Lord, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel” cried Zechariah (Luke 1:68) and Paul wrote, “Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Here we address God as “the Lord,” the ultimate “I am who I am,” the Lord of all being and the fountain of all goodness, wisdom and power.
Who hast caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning; Paul wrote, “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning” (Romans 15:4) and, “All these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).
Here, by careful use of the relative clause, we recall reverently before God what we have been taught concerning the use of the Scriptures, that though written centuries ago, they were written (by inspiration and through God’s omniscience) for our practical use today. They exist for our learning, or our instruction in Faith and Morals. So we read the Scriptures in the humble confidence that God has foreseen our needs and will meet them as we receive his written Word.
Grant that we may in such wise hear them, Since we know why the Scriptures exist we ask God, in his mercy and grace, to place us in a position where we can truly profit from their existence and content, as the Word of God written and translated into our language. The verb “Grant” contains not only the theme of petition but also of submission to God, the Lord. And we ask that we may receive their content in such a way and fashion that the reception will be to our true edification. “Hearing” is the first way in which we receive the oracles of God, as they are read in the church services of Morning and Evening Prayer, in the Order for Holy Communion, and in Family Prayers.
Read, mark and inwardly digest them, Hearing the oracles is but the beginning of receiving them for as we hear them we can also read them, and when alone we can just read them. The purpose of both hearing and reading them (done at the same time or separately) is that we may mark, that is pay careful attention to, what we hear and read concerning God and his salvation in Jesus Christ. Marking, paying careful attention, leads to learning and understanding, and to being lodged in the memory and heart – “Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee” [Psalm 119:11]. This whole exercise may be called meditation for it is the route appointed by God whereby his Word goes from the written page into our inmost souls. Merely to hear or merely to read the Bible is not enough; we are called dutifully and humbly to employ the means necessary to allow the Word of God to enter into our lives. We need to have both the spiritual appetite and the spiritual digestion in place to come to the experience of the Psalmist who declared: “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth” [Psalm 119:103].
That by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word, Here we begin a specific application to the Advent Season, when we look for the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus in glory even as we celebrate his Nativity in Bethlehem as the Son of God incarnate. St Paul wrote, “that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Romans 15:4), that is hope of that Second Coming and of the redemption of our bodies and life in glory. We need to bear in mind that the comfort and strengthening of the Scriptures particularly comes to those who are patient!
We may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, The Christian hope is a blessed hope as St Paul told Titus: “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). And having addressed God as the “Blessed Lord”, we now celebrate the “blessed hope” which he alone provides for us (if we were using Latin the first of God would be Benedictus and the second of his gift would be beatus).
Thus we ask God to help us rightly to use the Holy Scriptures as a means of preparing for the Second Advent and of life together with Christ in glory.
Which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. As the invocation of this Collect (to “Blessed Lord”) is unique in The Book of Common Prayer, so the conclusion is a very significant variation on the usual ending of these short prayers – “through Jesus Christ…” Instead of the proposition “through” we use “in” because the Christian hope is not merely through Jesus the Mediator but it is actually all bound up within him as our Prophet, Priest and King. In fact it is, “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” as St Paul told the Colossians (1:27). This Hope keeps us steadfast not only in Advent but throughout the whole Church Year.
Amen. So be it, O LORD, the Blessed One and blessed be thy kingdom now and always, even unto ages of ages.
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we in such wise hear them, read, mark and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and comfort of they holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which though hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
The doctrinal basis of the “Anglican Communion Network” : Is a new doctrinal statement required?
Since it is a voluntary organization, made up of dioceses, parishes and persons, who already belong to an ecclesial body, the Episcopal Church [ECUSA], the Network decided to distinguish itself within that Church, by having its own statement of faith and vocation. In fact, because it came into being in a crisis situation it felt the need to specify wherein it is different from other bodies that use the names of “Episcopal” and “Anglican” in North America. The crisis was set in motion by actions in the ECUSA and Anglican Church of Canada which introduced innovatory doctrine and practice in sexual relations into these two Provinces of the Anglican Communion. In the ECUSA a divorced man, living in a same-sex partnership with another man, was consecrated as a bishop; and in Canada same-sex couples were given services of blessing on their union.
The “Confession and Calling of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes” agreed in 2004 begins with a preamble wherein the crisis is described as “a threat to historic Faith and Order that defines”. Then follow the three sections of the document: 1. Stewards of a Trust (i.e., of the Gospel and the Mystery of Faith); 2. [God’s call to be] Trustworthy in Obedience and Communion; & 3. [The need for] Repentance, Reconciliation, Reform & Renewal. Many paragraphs begin, “We confess, hold and bear witness before God…” which form of words reminds us of the old Continental European style of confessing the faith -- “We believe, teach and confess…” Alongside the Statement, verses from the Bible are supplied as proof-texts of the assertions being made.
I will now offer some [critical] comments upon the document in the form it appears on the official website of The Network (I say this as there may be another edition somewhere else).
The “Confession and Calling of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes” agreed in 2004 begins with a preamble wherein the crisis is described as “a threat to historic Faith and Order that defines”. Then follow the three sections of the document: 1. Stewards of a Trust (i.e., of the Gospel and the Mystery of Faith); 2. [God’s call to be] Trustworthy in Obedience and Communion; & 3. [The need for] Repentance, Reconciliation, Reform & Renewal. Many paragraphs begin, “We confess, hold and bear witness before God…” which form of words reminds us of the old Continental European style of confessing the faith -- “We believe, teach and confess…” Alongside the Statement, verses from the Bible are supplied as proof-texts of the assertions being made.
I will now offer some [critical] comments upon the document in the form it appears on the official website of The Network (I say this as there may be another edition somewhere else).
It reads in such way as to give the impression that the crisis caused by the introduction of the homosexual agenda into the churches is the greatest crisis to face North American Anglicanism in modern times. And it is able to do so because the presence of an active homosexual bishop within the ECUSA is so offensive both to many American social conservatives and, oversees, to many African bishops for whom any form of homosexual practice is both socially and biblically offensive. Further, its citing of the Barmen Declaration from Germany against the Nazi ideology and policy adds to the impression of the unique gravity of this North American crisis. (It is unique, I suggest, only in that it is the latest of series of innovations, each one building, as it were, on the success of the earlier ones.)- It provides the impression that its author(s) are more at home in the world of Karl Barth and a modern, warm neo-orthodoxy, and the approach to the Bible from this school of thought, than they are in the world of the standard Anglican divines and of traditional Anglican forms of statement.
- The author(s) is/are well aware of recent writing in official reports from the Anglican Communion (e.g., the Virginia Report) wherein the actual reality of the communion in sacred things and fellowship amongst the provinces is seen as in some ways participating in and reflecting the actual, ineffable communion within the Blessed, Holy, and Undivided Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I regard this attempt to link the communion of Churches with the Holy Trinity as a dangerous form of theologizing. The commitment to the Communion of Churches must be based on common Formularies not on the attempt to use the internal life of God the Holy Trinity as a basis!
- Though there is reference to our “common historical formularies, including the sixteenth and seventeenth century authorized Book of Common Prayer and Thirty-Nine Articles” there is no anchoring of these in the life and history of the Anglican Way in North America, either in the USA or in Canada. The first American authorized edition of the Book of Common Prayer was that of 1789 and of The Articles, was 1801. (Note that that there was also The Ordinal, not mentioned by the “Confession….”) Thus no claims are made for the orthodoxy of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA from the 1780s through to the present; and, significantly, there is no facing of the absolutely important question of the authority of the historic Formularies within the ECUSA (formerly PECUSA), that is of the classic BCP, Ordinal and Articles? One asks: Are they seen as authoritative by The Network? Or is the Network of the same mind as the official ECUSA which in 1976/79 abandoned the historic formularies and replaced them with the content of the 1979 Prayer Book, which belongs to a wholly different form of Anglican worship, doctrine, polity and discipline (and from this form has grown the fruit of the present crisis!)?
- Though there is a commitment in the Confession (at II.4) to the “ideal” of Christian marriage as between a man and a woman, there is no recognition at all that the laxity of marital discipline in the ECUSA, including within the dioceses of The Network, with regard to the marriage of divorcees in church (not to mention the cohabitation of many church members, a widespread commitment to a hedonist view of marriage where self-fulfillment is primary, procreation being seen as optional and so on) has actually paved the way for the entry of the homosexual agenda. Though there is perhaps no direct causal connection there is no doubt that serial monogamy with its related phenomena opened the door and created the climate for the homosexual activists to press their claimed rights.
- Further, there is no acceptance of the impact that the ordination of women (with its major support from the doctrine of human rights) had on opening doors for further innovations, especially when put in terms of rights for minorities or those previously left out.
- Also, there is no recognition that the Bible is interpreted by The Network differently with regard to the ordination of women and the re-marriage of divorcees, than it is with regard to homosexual practice. In the latter case, the use is basic and straightforward – the Bible condemns sodomy, therefore it is wrong in all cases. But in the former, ways are devised to get around the clear meaning of Bible verses and to find sophisticated means to neutralize them so as to allow the innovation. Which method of interpretation is favored by The Network?
- Though there are statements of penitence and sorrow for where the ECUSA has arrived doctrinally and morally, there is no sorrow expressed for the actual and specific sharing of the Network bishops in the serious innovations in the life of the PECUSA/ECUSA since World War II. The sorrow and penitence are too general to have real meaning and effect.
- The impression is given that if there is a major U-turn by the ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada in terms of the present crisis then there is a real possibility of a return to an acceptable reality. This may be so in Canada which has still in place the Solemn Declaration concerning the historic Formularies but in the USA the historic Formularies disappeared in 1979 and have not yet returned and will only return if the Network works hard to achieve this. And of course merely having the right doctrine in place in not enough; there must be worship and witness to go with it!
PROPOSAL
In conclusion, I would suggest that this present Confession be seen as having a limited life and having now served its basic purpose, and that it be replaced by one that is truly Anglican in style and content and has a certain parallel nature to the doctrinal basis of the major African Provinces of the Communion of Churches:
(a) which wholly commits to the authority of Scripture and the historic Formularies – classic BCP, Ordinal and Articles, and
(b) contains a modern form of the Articles, addressed to the problems and heresies of today, to become a guide for Anglicans through the current mess (as were the original Articles in the 16th century).
[See also the related essay on “The A-C Network: a reflection upon “Network” below]
petertoon@msn.com November 29, 2005
The A-C Network – an intriguing title!
Reflections upon what is a Network
My intention is to reflect upon the expression “the Network” as used in the phrase. “the Anglican Communion Network.” This meditation may serve to clarify for people in the USA and elsewhere what is this new society/organization and where it can or will go.
It is claimed by insiders that the formation of the Network was originally suggested by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, in a private meeting in London with two Americans. Initial plans for the Convocation were laid at a gathering of “mainstream” Anglican leaders (including four Primates) in London in November 2003. A Memorandum of Agreement came out of this meeting and was ultimately signed by thirteen bishops of the Episcopal Church. The Memorandum stated the intention of these bishops to begin taking steps toward organizing a network of “confessing” dioceses and congregations within the Episcopal Church [ECUSA]. The signing of the memorandum by a bishop did not indicate that his diocese had joined the network. Since then, a total of ten dioceses — Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy, Rio Grande, San Joaquin, South Carolina and Springfield — have ratified their affiliation.
The Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes was officially launched on January 20, 2004, at the Network’s Organizing Convocation held at Christ Church, Plano, Texas. That meeting included representatives from 12 Episcopal dioceses, as well as persons from geographic regions and one non-geographic area that were designated as convocations. The gathering unanimously adopted a Structural Charter and affirmed a Theological Charter. The Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan was elected Moderator of the new Network and will serve for a three-year term. The Organizing Convocation also elected a 12-member Steering Committee composed of persons from across the country. The Network was given financial help to get started and to continue by the American Anglican Council, and the two organizations remain close but distinct.
We do not know what Rowan Williams had in mind when he suggested “a Network” and we do not know whether what he understood as a network was the same model in the mind of Americans present with him, the very men who brought back the message that he had suggested a network. The word is used today in a variety of ways, for example:
Then there is the growing use of “network” by international companies to describe the relation to each other of offices, plants, distribution centers, factories and the like around the world.
In most uses of this word in modern discourse, the network is a primary thing and describes the relation to each other of primary realities – e.g., the railroads that cut across the country, or the spies in a country or region, or the various physical manifestations of an international company.
However, in the religious use being considered here, the network is very much a secondary, dependent and supportive thing. The dioceses are first of all dioceses of the Episcopal Church and the parishes are first of all parts of actual dioceses. Their membership of the Network is voluntary and can be ceased at any time. Further, though persons may feel a stronger level of moral commitment to the Network than to the original ecclesial structure/institution, the fact of the matter is that their primary existence derives not from the Network but from the ECUSA. This remains true even if it is conceded that the Network is planning (though there is no evidence for this yet) to become a Province of the Anglican Communion.
Certainly the country is organized into geographical regions and non-geographical interest groups (e.g., the Forward in Faith NA) and there are local officers (who assume ecclesial titles such as “Very Rev.” !) but again this is all voluntary and all who participate have a primary residence in and legal connection to a unit of the Episcopal Church of the USA or other ecclesial body. Such organization is not new, for not a few voluntary societies have had and still have diocesan or geographical chapters across the country and they are also “networks.”
What all this means is that this specific Network is not the visible Church as such (it is not a Province with dioceses and dioceses with parishes); but, it is to be likened to a missionary society or a voluntary, not for profit, organization, or an advocacy group for a special kind of Anglicanism, or a reform movement working for changes in the Anglican Way, or something else – or all of these.
Now the Network’s full title is, “The Anglican Communion Network.” Obviously this is intended to make a statement that, as half of the provinces of the Anglican Communion are not in eucharistic or doctrinal communion with the ECUSA, this group within the ECUSA wants to maintain full communion with those provinces which have anathematized the ECUSA. Yet, we must remember that communion is wholly dependent on the gift of the bishops, dioceses and provinces outside of the ECUSA and cannot be caused by the will of the Network membership, for as Episcopalians they are, as it were, under the ban.
The oddity of the title may be seen by reflecting upon the reality that being part of the ECUSA the actual membership of the Network is actually within the very Province with which a majority of Anglican Primates and Provinces are in impaired or broken communion. So the Network membership relies on the promises of Primates from the Global South that it (i.e., they as “the orthodox”) are excluded from the blanket condemnation of the ECUSA for its innovations and refusal to repent of them. Thus the use of “Anglican Communion” functions as a statement of intent and as an expression of hope for the membership of the Network. Yet it is a “loose” expression with flexible content.
To conclude this short meditation.
When you have a voluntary society, even one which has the verbal support of important people at home and overseas, you always run the risk (in a culture where private opinion is highly rated and where doing one’s own thing is celebrated) of losing momentum, of dividing into various interest and pressure groups, and of being taken over by external or internal stronger forces. Right now, the Network appears to have a variety of goals and purposes, all of which appear honorable and noble; but unless it has a clearly stated supreme goal that is seen as worthy of sacrificing for, a clear commitment doctrinally and morally to the full Anglican Way, and unless its leadership actually walks the walk as well as talks the talk right now, it will (as I have said before) probably, like the Episcopal Synod of the early 1980s fail in its declared vocation. The only clear goal that would take genuine sacrifice and wisdom, and that I can think of, is the creation of a new, orthodox province of the Anglican Communion on American soil – a province which would include (to use the unfortunate noun preferred by the Network) not only the Network but also the present diaspora of Anglican jurisdictions outside the present ECUSA and official Anglican Communion of Churches.
(see also the related essay on the Doctrinal Basis of the Network above)
petertoon@msn.com November 29, 2005
My intention is to reflect upon the expression “the Network” as used in the phrase. “the Anglican Communion Network.” This meditation may serve to clarify for people in the USA and elsewhere what is this new society/organization and where it can or will go.
It is claimed by insiders that the formation of the Network was originally suggested by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, in a private meeting in London with two Americans. Initial plans for the Convocation were laid at a gathering of “mainstream” Anglican leaders (including four Primates) in London in November 2003. A Memorandum of Agreement came out of this meeting and was ultimately signed by thirteen bishops of the Episcopal Church. The Memorandum stated the intention of these bishops to begin taking steps toward organizing a network of “confessing” dioceses and congregations within the Episcopal Church [ECUSA]. The signing of the memorandum by a bishop did not indicate that his diocese had joined the network. Since then, a total of ten dioceses — Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy, Rio Grande, San Joaquin, South Carolina and Springfield — have ratified their affiliation.
The Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes was officially launched on January 20, 2004, at the Network’s Organizing Convocation held at Christ Church, Plano, Texas. That meeting included representatives from 12 Episcopal dioceses, as well as persons from geographic regions and one non-geographic area that were designated as convocations. The gathering unanimously adopted a Structural Charter and affirmed a Theological Charter. The Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan was elected Moderator of the new Network and will serve for a three-year term. The Organizing Convocation also elected a 12-member Steering Committee composed of persons from across the country. The Network was given financial help to get started and to continue by the American Anglican Council, and the two organizations remain close but distinct.
We do not know what Rowan Williams had in mind when he suggested “a Network” and we do not know whether what he understood as a network was the same model in the mind of Americans present with him, the very men who brought back the message that he had suggested a network. The word is used today in a variety of ways, for example:
- An openwork fabric or structure in which cords, threads, or wires cross at regular intervals.
- Something resembling an openwork fabric or structure in form or concept, especially:
- A system of lines or channels that cross or interconnect: a network of railroads.
- A complex, interconnected group or system: an espionage network.
- An extended group of people with similar interests or concerns who interact and remain in informal contact for mutual assistance or support.
- A chain of radio or television broadcasting stations linked by wire or microwave relay.
Then there is the growing use of “network” by international companies to describe the relation to each other of offices, plants, distribution centers, factories and the like around the world.
In most uses of this word in modern discourse, the network is a primary thing and describes the relation to each other of primary realities – e.g., the railroads that cut across the country, or the spies in a country or region, or the various physical manifestations of an international company.
However, in the religious use being considered here, the network is very much a secondary, dependent and supportive thing. The dioceses are first of all dioceses of the Episcopal Church and the parishes are first of all parts of actual dioceses. Their membership of the Network is voluntary and can be ceased at any time. Further, though persons may feel a stronger level of moral commitment to the Network than to the original ecclesial structure/institution, the fact of the matter is that their primary existence derives not from the Network but from the ECUSA. This remains true even if it is conceded that the Network is planning (though there is no evidence for this yet) to become a Province of the Anglican Communion.
Certainly the country is organized into geographical regions and non-geographical interest groups (e.g., the Forward in Faith NA) and there are local officers (who assume ecclesial titles such as “Very Rev.” !) but again this is all voluntary and all who participate have a primary residence in and legal connection to a unit of the Episcopal Church of the USA or other ecclesial body. Such organization is not new, for not a few voluntary societies have had and still have diocesan or geographical chapters across the country and they are also “networks.”
What all this means is that this specific Network is not the visible Church as such (it is not a Province with dioceses and dioceses with parishes); but, it is to be likened to a missionary society or a voluntary, not for profit, organization, or an advocacy group for a special kind of Anglicanism, or a reform movement working for changes in the Anglican Way, or something else – or all of these.
Now the Network’s full title is, “The Anglican Communion Network.” Obviously this is intended to make a statement that, as half of the provinces of the Anglican Communion are not in eucharistic or doctrinal communion with the ECUSA, this group within the ECUSA wants to maintain full communion with those provinces which have anathematized the ECUSA. Yet, we must remember that communion is wholly dependent on the gift of the bishops, dioceses and provinces outside of the ECUSA and cannot be caused by the will of the Network membership, for as Episcopalians they are, as it were, under the ban.
The oddity of the title may be seen by reflecting upon the reality that being part of the ECUSA the actual membership of the Network is actually within the very Province with which a majority of Anglican Primates and Provinces are in impaired or broken communion. So the Network membership relies on the promises of Primates from the Global South that it (i.e., they as “the orthodox”) are excluded from the blanket condemnation of the ECUSA for its innovations and refusal to repent of them. Thus the use of “Anglican Communion” functions as a statement of intent and as an expression of hope for the membership of the Network. Yet it is a “loose” expression with flexible content.
To conclude this short meditation.
When you have a voluntary society, even one which has the verbal support of important people at home and overseas, you always run the risk (in a culture where private opinion is highly rated and where doing one’s own thing is celebrated) of losing momentum, of dividing into various interest and pressure groups, and of being taken over by external or internal stronger forces. Right now, the Network appears to have a variety of goals and purposes, all of which appear honorable and noble; but unless it has a clearly stated supreme goal that is seen as worthy of sacrificing for, a clear commitment doctrinally and morally to the full Anglican Way, and unless its leadership actually walks the walk as well as talks the talk right now, it will (as I have said before) probably, like the Episcopal Synod of the early 1980s fail in its declared vocation. The only clear goal that would take genuine sacrifice and wisdom, and that I can think of, is the creation of a new, orthodox province of the Anglican Communion on American soil – a province which would include (to use the unfortunate noun preferred by the Network) not only the Network but also the present diaspora of Anglican jurisdictions outside the present ECUSA and official Anglican Communion of Churches.
(see also the related essay on the Doctrinal Basis of the Network above)
petertoon@msn.com November 29, 2005
Monday, November 28, 2005
Patriarchy: Inextricably part of God’s revelation or merely the package in which it comes?
The contents of the Bible (when read in the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) are saturated with patriarchy (literally, the rule of fathers). God, the LORD, is pre-eminently “the Father” in the New Testament and the great heroes of faith and the covenant of grace of the first book of the Bible are patriarchs – e.g., Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jesus chose only men to be his apostles; and the apostles ordained only men as presbyters (elders) and bishops (shepherds) in the churches they founded. In his Mere Christianity, Professor C.S. Lewis saw the “headship” of the father in the family as part of basic Christian doctrine and ethics.
If patriarchy is writ large in the Bible (not to mention being writ large in The Book of Common Prayer [1662] and Protestant Confessions of the Reformation era), why do these facts not genuinely bother and trouble modern American evangelical readers of the Bible, who claim that the Bible is “God’s Word written”? It would appear that they should be troubled because they are committed to equality of the sexes not only before God (which the NT certainly proclaims) but also for equality of opportunity, work and leadership in family, the world and the church (which the OT and NT do not affirm). In other words, they deny patriarchy in certain important, practical aspects; but, nevertheless, they proclaim the authority and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures, which contain patriarchy as a major ingredient. How can this be? How can they (by implication) proclaim one thing and then deny its requirements in practice?
The answer would seem to be that they are so much a part of the modern world of civil and human rights and of therapeutic approaches to faith, things which are also a part of religion in their churches, that they are not really challenged by the way that patriarchy is inextricably intertwined into the biblical narrative. They just do not see it there and so there is no problem to face. Why? There are two or three possible answers.
First of all, they tend to use versions/paraphrases of the Bible translated into English using the method known as dynamic equivalency. This has the effect of removing the teeth of patriarchy as it provides not a literal translation of the original text but an approximation of it in modern terms (e.g., “brethren” becomes “sisters and brothers” & “Blessed is the Man…” becomes “Happy are they…”).
Secondly, they are told by evangelical experts on the Bible, that the patriarchy is part of ancient society and culture and is not part of the essential Word of God; rather, it is the package in which the Word comes and was the means graciously used at the time by God when the revelation was originally given. So, for example, the appointment only of men as apostles and elders was simply because women at that time did not do such things and, furthermore, they were involved in child-minding (after all, safe birth control only arrived in the second half of the 20th century!). In modern times, with all the advances in science, technology, anthropology and the social and behavioral sciences, women are in a very different position than they were in Biblical times –even early 20th century times and this the God of heaven surely knows.
Then, of course, there is the tendency in all of us to choose from what is on offer before us that which is acceptable or pleasing to us. This is part of our inherent self-preservation and selfishness. So, if we are tied into a home-life, educational system and culture that insist on the full rights of women in employment and leadership, and we regard all this as what should be, even ought to be, then we assume that God also approves of the status quo. And if HE approves then His Word will surely not say otherwise and when we read it we do not expect it to say anything but that which we have come to see as His way through our experience in the modern world. (This is an important point worth pondering!)
But there is one area where Evangelicals keep traces of patriarchy and that is in the addressing of God as “Father”. They see it as the term Jesus used and therefore one which they should use as his disciples.
So it would seem to be the case that those (e.g., the Evangelicals in the ELCA, ECUSA and AMiA) who proclaim loudest the final authority of the Bible for faith and conduct are yet are unable to see much of the content of the Bible, because of the types of spectacles they use in reading it and the blinkers that their commitment to modern cultural norms causes them to wear. “Headship” of the male is for most if not all only a talking point; it is not a practical doctrine in family or church as the empirical evidence of the latter makes more than clear.
Cross References
I would suggest that there is much the same mindset at work when it comes to the acceptance of the right of divorced persons to have a Christian service of Holy Matrimony in church or conducted according to the rites of the church. We live in a divorce culture and we are so used to serial monogamy that we read the Bible without seeing that if (and it is a big if) remarriage after divorce is actually permitted by Jesus (and thus approved by God) it is only in a limited area and thus involving only a few persons – not multitudes. The themes of chastity, and “one man and one women as one flesh for life” are noticed but not emphasized (except as an ideal, which is different from a standard). So here again the message of the Bible is missed or avoided through either inability to see or the lack of will to see.
However, and this is a big however, a different mindset is at work when it comes to the rights of homosexual persons of the same sex to form a covenanted union and receive a church blessing. This is condemned strongly and loudly – to put it minimally -- by most Evangelicals and done so by using the clear biblical texts against sodomy in the way they were used in ancient times. That is, no allowances are made as they are for women’s rights and for the rights of divorcees. The Bible as it was read by the Fathers, the Reformers and the Revivalists is used to denounce the homosexual agenda as of the devil and sinful before God. No allowance is made for the claim that the covenanted union of homosexual persons is a new phenomenon, is part of modern civil rights and justice, and that the Bible does not even address it as such.
I am puzzled by all this. I am not defending homosexual practice and neither am I attacking women in leadership in society and church. I am asking questions about what seems to me to be an odd situation.
Maybe some evangelicals who fit into the description above will tell us how they square up their use of the Bible for doctrine and morality.
petertoon@msn.com November 28, 2005
If patriarchy is writ large in the Bible (not to mention being writ large in The Book of Common Prayer [1662] and Protestant Confessions of the Reformation era), why do these facts not genuinely bother and trouble modern American evangelical readers of the Bible, who claim that the Bible is “God’s Word written”? It would appear that they should be troubled because they are committed to equality of the sexes not only before God (which the NT certainly proclaims) but also for equality of opportunity, work and leadership in family, the world and the church (which the OT and NT do not affirm). In other words, they deny patriarchy in certain important, practical aspects; but, nevertheless, they proclaim the authority and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures, which contain patriarchy as a major ingredient. How can this be? How can they (by implication) proclaim one thing and then deny its requirements in practice?
The answer would seem to be that they are so much a part of the modern world of civil and human rights and of therapeutic approaches to faith, things which are also a part of religion in their churches, that they are not really challenged by the way that patriarchy is inextricably intertwined into the biblical narrative. They just do not see it there and so there is no problem to face. Why? There are two or three possible answers.
First of all, they tend to use versions/paraphrases of the Bible translated into English using the method known as dynamic equivalency. This has the effect of removing the teeth of patriarchy as it provides not a literal translation of the original text but an approximation of it in modern terms (e.g., “brethren” becomes “sisters and brothers” & “Blessed is the Man…” becomes “Happy are they…”).
Secondly, they are told by evangelical experts on the Bible, that the patriarchy is part of ancient society and culture and is not part of the essential Word of God; rather, it is the package in which the Word comes and was the means graciously used at the time by God when the revelation was originally given. So, for example, the appointment only of men as apostles and elders was simply because women at that time did not do such things and, furthermore, they were involved in child-minding (after all, safe birth control only arrived in the second half of the 20th century!). In modern times, with all the advances in science, technology, anthropology and the social and behavioral sciences, women are in a very different position than they were in Biblical times –even early 20th century times and this the God of heaven surely knows.
Then, of course, there is the tendency in all of us to choose from what is on offer before us that which is acceptable or pleasing to us. This is part of our inherent self-preservation and selfishness. So, if we are tied into a home-life, educational system and culture that insist on the full rights of women in employment and leadership, and we regard all this as what should be, even ought to be, then we assume that God also approves of the status quo. And if HE approves then His Word will surely not say otherwise and when we read it we do not expect it to say anything but that which we have come to see as His way through our experience in the modern world. (This is an important point worth pondering!)
But there is one area where Evangelicals keep traces of patriarchy and that is in the addressing of God as “Father”. They see it as the term Jesus used and therefore one which they should use as his disciples.
So it would seem to be the case that those (e.g., the Evangelicals in the ELCA, ECUSA and AMiA) who proclaim loudest the final authority of the Bible for faith and conduct are yet are unable to see much of the content of the Bible, because of the types of spectacles they use in reading it and the blinkers that their commitment to modern cultural norms causes them to wear. “Headship” of the male is for most if not all only a talking point; it is not a practical doctrine in family or church as the empirical evidence of the latter makes more than clear.
Cross References
I would suggest that there is much the same mindset at work when it comes to the acceptance of the right of divorced persons to have a Christian service of Holy Matrimony in church or conducted according to the rites of the church. We live in a divorce culture and we are so used to serial monogamy that we read the Bible without seeing that if (and it is a big if) remarriage after divorce is actually permitted by Jesus (and thus approved by God) it is only in a limited area and thus involving only a few persons – not multitudes. The themes of chastity, and “one man and one women as one flesh for life” are noticed but not emphasized (except as an ideal, which is different from a standard). So here again the message of the Bible is missed or avoided through either inability to see or the lack of will to see.
However, and this is a big however, a different mindset is at work when it comes to the rights of homosexual persons of the same sex to form a covenanted union and receive a church blessing. This is condemned strongly and loudly – to put it minimally -- by most Evangelicals and done so by using the clear biblical texts against sodomy in the way they were used in ancient times. That is, no allowances are made as they are for women’s rights and for the rights of divorcees. The Bible as it was read by the Fathers, the Reformers and the Revivalists is used to denounce the homosexual agenda as of the devil and sinful before God. No allowance is made for the claim that the covenanted union of homosexual persons is a new phenomenon, is part of modern civil rights and justice, and that the Bible does not even address it as such.
I am puzzled by all this. I am not defending homosexual practice and neither am I attacking women in leadership in society and church. I am asking questions about what seems to me to be an odd situation.
Maybe some evangelicals who fit into the description above will tell us how they square up their use of the Bible for doctrine and morality.
petertoon@msn.com November 28, 2005
Sunday, November 27, 2005
A D V E N T
The Christian season of Advent (Latin, adventus, “Coming”) runs from the fourth Sunday before Christmas until the eve of Christmas. It is also the beginning of the Christian Year.
One way of thinking about its purpose and meaning is to take each letter of the word, a-d-v-e-n-t, and let it represent a theme or aspect of this season. So let us try this method.
A – Arrival
During the season of Advent the Church of Christ joins the remnant of Israel (such as Simeon & Anna) through liturgy in preparing for the Arrival of the Messiah, the Son of David & the Son of God, even Jesus, Son of Mary. Further, the Church joins Israel in listening to John the Baptist, who prepared the way of the Messiah.
Also, during the season of Advent the Church of Christ as the Bride of Christ looks for his Return to earth, his Arrival as the Lord of lords and King of kings to raise the dead, judge the nations and inaugurate the kingdom of God.
So the Church prays on Advent III
O Lord Jesu Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee: Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise turn so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world, we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
D -- Devotion
The four weeks of Advent provide the possibility of a period of intense and deep Devotion both in the public liturgy of the Church and in personal times of prayer and meditation. This consecration to walking with God in humility and obedience is summed up in the Collect for the last of the four Sundays:
O LORD, raise up (we pray thee) thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through the satisfaction of thy Son our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be honour and glory, world without end. Amen.
The Collect is addressed to God, the Father, and it is an earnest request that he will gather up his power and descend to his people (by the Holy Ghost) in order to help, succour and sustain them in the race they are running in their earthly pilgrimage towards the goal & fullness of the kingdom of heaven (see Hebrews 12:1).
In making this petition, God’s people recognize that due to their sins of omission and commission they have failed to run in God’s grace as gracefully and swiftly as they are called to do and ought to have done. Thus they look to the Father to provide them through his Son and by his Spirit, and in grace and mercy, the help they need. In particular they look to the “satisfaction of thy Son”, to his perfect obedience of the Father in his life and in his death, as the basis for asking for divine mercy and assistance (i.e., to his active and passive obedience).
If God’s people are to live as those who expect the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, then they need not only to watch and pray but also to live as the obedient and faithful servants of God, engaged daily in his service and running the race that is set before them. This requires true Devotion!
V. Volition (the act of willing or resolving)
God is merciful and gives us grace but we have to be willing to receive that grace and to commit ourselves to his will and purpose. The Devotion of Advent requires definition Volition! But this we prayed for in the week before Advent: “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people…”
The season of Advent may be viewed as a short Lent as a time when strict discipline over the body through Fasting is one means of deepening awareness of God and devotion to him. The colour for this season, like Lent, is purple pointing to asceticism and the words of the Advent Collect, “Give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness” also suggest the need for discipline & Fasting. Further, it is possible for four weeks to omit “Gloria in Excelsis” from the Eucharist as a sign of liturgical asceticism – but to do this without developing the interior Devotion of asceticism is to miss out!
Yet Volition, the commitment of the will resolved to do what God requires and to please him, is the real thing here! That is, the will as it is graciously turned towards the Lord to obey him and to do his bidding.
E – Expectancy
As the righteous remnant in Israel waited for the Messiah in hopeful expectancy, so Christian worshippers in the Liturgy throughout Advent grow in expectancy for the arrival of the Son of God Incarnate. And their expectancy is joyfully fulfilled at the first service of Christmas as either they hear the words of the angel first spoken to the shepherds: “To you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord,” or the majestic words of John 1, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth…”
Further, liturgically Expectancy is communicated by the great “O’s” used during the last week of Advent.
O WISDOM, that camest out of the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to another, firmly and gently ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of understanding.
O ADONAI, Captain of the house of Israel, who didst appear to Moses in the flame of the burning bush, and gavest him the law on Sinai: Come and deliver us with thine outsretched arm.
O ROOT OF JESSE, who standest for an ensign of the people, before whom kings shall shut their mouths, to whom the nations shall seek: Come and deliver us and tarry not.
O KEY OF DAVID, Sceptre of the house of Israel, who openest and no man shutteth, and shuttest and not man openeth; Come and bring forth out of the prison-house him that is bound.
O DAY-SPRING FROM ON HIGH, Brightness of Eternal Light, and Sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.
O KING OF NATIONS, thou for whom they long, the Cornerstone that makest them both one: Come and save thy creatures whom thou didst fashion from the dust of the earth.
O EMMANUEL, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all nations and their Saviour: Come and save us, O Lord our God.
N – Narrative
The Scripture passages, the Bible narrative, read, heard and pondered during Advent are most important. In the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer, the Book of Isaiah the Prophet is prominent and is read extensively throughout the four weeks as the Old Testament Lesson. In this book, not only are there many passages addressed to ancient Israel but there are also prophecies that look into the future to proclaim the arrival of the Messiah, the nature of his kingdom, his exaltation through suffering, and the triumph of his cause.
The Anglican Collect for Advent II refers to this relation to Holy Scripture:
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark ,learn and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
T – Thanksgiving
Though there is a strong element of penitence accompanying the fasting and asceticism in Advent, there is a stronger element of Thanksgiving! For God is praised and thanked for his saving deeds and his inspired words recorded in the Old Testament, all of which point to their climax in the arrival of the Messiah, the Saviour, who came to “fulfil the Law and the Prophets.” There is celebration of God’s mighty salvation experienced by the Israelites and there is anticipation of the even mightier salvation wrought in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And of course the meaning of the word, “Eucharist”, is “Thanksgiving” and thus in the Sacrament each week there is profound thanksgiving offered to the Father through the Son and with the Holy Spirit.
The Advent Collect to be used throughout the four weeks
Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)
petertoon@msn.com
www.episcopalian.org/pbs1928
www.anglicanmarketplace.com
thomascranmer2000@yahoo.com
One way of thinking about its purpose and meaning is to take each letter of the word, a-d-v-e-n-t, and let it represent a theme or aspect of this season. So let us try this method.
A – Arrival
During the season of Advent the Church of Christ joins the remnant of Israel (such as Simeon & Anna) through liturgy in preparing for the Arrival of the Messiah, the Son of David & the Son of God, even Jesus, Son of Mary. Further, the Church joins Israel in listening to John the Baptist, who prepared the way of the Messiah.
Also, during the season of Advent the Church of Christ as the Bride of Christ looks for his Return to earth, his Arrival as the Lord of lords and King of kings to raise the dead, judge the nations and inaugurate the kingdom of God.
So the Church prays on Advent III
O Lord Jesu Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee: Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise turn so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world, we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
D -- Devotion
The four weeks of Advent provide the possibility of a period of intense and deep Devotion both in the public liturgy of the Church and in personal times of prayer and meditation. This consecration to walking with God in humility and obedience is summed up in the Collect for the last of the four Sundays:
O LORD, raise up (we pray thee) thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through the satisfaction of thy Son our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be honour and glory, world without end. Amen.
The Collect is addressed to God, the Father, and it is an earnest request that he will gather up his power and descend to his people (by the Holy Ghost) in order to help, succour and sustain them in the race they are running in their earthly pilgrimage towards the goal & fullness of the kingdom of heaven (see Hebrews 12:1).
In making this petition, God’s people recognize that due to their sins of omission and commission they have failed to run in God’s grace as gracefully and swiftly as they are called to do and ought to have done. Thus they look to the Father to provide them through his Son and by his Spirit, and in grace and mercy, the help they need. In particular they look to the “satisfaction of thy Son”, to his perfect obedience of the Father in his life and in his death, as the basis for asking for divine mercy and assistance (i.e., to his active and passive obedience).
If God’s people are to live as those who expect the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, then they need not only to watch and pray but also to live as the obedient and faithful servants of God, engaged daily in his service and running the race that is set before them. This requires true Devotion!
V. Volition (the act of willing or resolving)
God is merciful and gives us grace but we have to be willing to receive that grace and to commit ourselves to his will and purpose. The Devotion of Advent requires definition Volition! But this we prayed for in the week before Advent: “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people…”
The season of Advent may be viewed as a short Lent as a time when strict discipline over the body through Fasting is one means of deepening awareness of God and devotion to him. The colour for this season, like Lent, is purple pointing to asceticism and the words of the Advent Collect, “Give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness” also suggest the need for discipline & Fasting. Further, it is possible for four weeks to omit “Gloria in Excelsis” from the Eucharist as a sign of liturgical asceticism – but to do this without developing the interior Devotion of asceticism is to miss out!
Yet Volition, the commitment of the will resolved to do what God requires and to please him, is the real thing here! That is, the will as it is graciously turned towards the Lord to obey him and to do his bidding.
E – Expectancy
As the righteous remnant in Israel waited for the Messiah in hopeful expectancy, so Christian worshippers in the Liturgy throughout Advent grow in expectancy for the arrival of the Son of God Incarnate. And their expectancy is joyfully fulfilled at the first service of Christmas as either they hear the words of the angel first spoken to the shepherds: “To you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord,” or the majestic words of John 1, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth…”
Further, liturgically Expectancy is communicated by the great “O’s” used during the last week of Advent.
O WISDOM, that camest out of the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to another, firmly and gently ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of understanding.
O ADONAI, Captain of the house of Israel, who didst appear to Moses in the flame of the burning bush, and gavest him the law on Sinai: Come and deliver us with thine outsretched arm.
O ROOT OF JESSE, who standest for an ensign of the people, before whom kings shall shut their mouths, to whom the nations shall seek: Come and deliver us and tarry not.
O KEY OF DAVID, Sceptre of the house of Israel, who openest and no man shutteth, and shuttest and not man openeth; Come and bring forth out of the prison-house him that is bound.
O DAY-SPRING FROM ON HIGH, Brightness of Eternal Light, and Sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.
O KING OF NATIONS, thou for whom they long, the Cornerstone that makest them both one: Come and save thy creatures whom thou didst fashion from the dust of the earth.
O EMMANUEL, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all nations and their Saviour: Come and save us, O Lord our God.
N – Narrative
The Scripture passages, the Bible narrative, read, heard and pondered during Advent are most important. In the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer, the Book of Isaiah the Prophet is prominent and is read extensively throughout the four weeks as the Old Testament Lesson. In this book, not only are there many passages addressed to ancient Israel but there are also prophecies that look into the future to proclaim the arrival of the Messiah, the nature of his kingdom, his exaltation through suffering, and the triumph of his cause.
The Anglican Collect for Advent II refers to this relation to Holy Scripture:
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark ,learn and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
T – Thanksgiving
Though there is a strong element of penitence accompanying the fasting and asceticism in Advent, there is a stronger element of Thanksgiving! For God is praised and thanked for his saving deeds and his inspired words recorded in the Old Testament, all of which point to their climax in the arrival of the Messiah, the Saviour, who came to “fulfil the Law and the Prophets.” There is celebration of God’s mighty salvation experienced by the Israelites and there is anticipation of the even mightier salvation wrought in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And of course the meaning of the word, “Eucharist”, is “Thanksgiving” and thus in the Sacrament each week there is profound thanksgiving offered to the Father through the Son and with the Holy Spirit.
The Advent Collect to be used throughout the four weeks
Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)
petertoon@msn.com
www.episcopalian.org/pbs1928
www.anglicanmarketplace.com
thomascranmer2000@yahoo.com
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Report from Peter Toon November 23rd 2005
Thanks for your best wishes and prayers for my bracytherapy.
I am now back home drinking gallons of water and putting ice-packs on the bruised parts of my body where the long needles went in to deliver 125 seeds.
Naturally I feel tired but the professor told me that they managed to get the seeds where they wanted them and they counted it a success. These expensive little seeds begin immediately to release their energy but one really feels it in several weeks time and the life of these seeds is about 6 months.
I have been given a Letter to present at the security at airports etc to explain why I set off the alarms.
THANKSGIVING, USA style, tomorrow, will not be for me a time of special eating but eating a little and drinking a lot of water – not wine!
I have two ladies to look after me and drive me where I need to go, like to the Library for a few books!
Again thanks for your interest and your prayers
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)
I am now back home drinking gallons of water and putting ice-packs on the bruised parts of my body where the long needles went in to deliver 125 seeds.
Naturally I feel tired but the professor told me that they managed to get the seeds where they wanted them and they counted it a success. These expensive little seeds begin immediately to release their energy but one really feels it in several weeks time and the life of these seeds is about 6 months.
I have been given a Letter to present at the security at airports etc to explain why I set off the alarms.
THANKSGIVING, USA style, tomorrow, will not be for me a time of special eating but eating a little and drinking a lot of water – not wine!
I have two ladies to look after me and drive me where I need to go, like to the Library for a few books!
Again thanks for your interest and your prayers
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)
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